Last November 16, Rachel Smalley was on top of the world. The former broadcaster had just taken a call from TVNZ Sunday journalist Miriama Kamo to tell her she’d been nominated for the Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year 2024 awards, and she couldn’t wait to tell her mum Shirley Mackie.
“I was so excited – it was a huge surprise,” says Rachel, 52, who was nominated for her work with The Medicine Gap, an initiative advocating for better access to modern medicine. “Miri told me I had to keep the news quiet, but I’d been given the okay to tell Mum. I celebrated for about 90 seconds, got quite emotional about it – and then I called Mum with the news.
“But her voice just broke. I thought maybe she was getting emotional about my news, but she told
